the National Alliance to End Homelessness filed a lawsuit and motion for a temporary restraining order against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and HUD Secretary Scott Turner. We are challenging the new funding restrictions that unlawfully condition access to the federal Continuum of Care Builds grants opportunity upon compliance with the Trump-Vance administration’s partisan agenda.
The work to end homelessness should never be partisan. Yet, the most recent re-issuance of the grant opportunity blocks service providers and communities from applying for critical housing funds if they:
- operate in jurisdictions with inclusive immigration policies,
- offer protections for transgender people, or
- support harm reduction practices.
This is unacceptable. This is the third time that HUD has issued this same grant opportunity, even after grant awards had already been announced to Congress earlier this summer. With each re-issuance, HUD has needlessly disrupted the lifesaving work of Continuums of Care with onerous and unnecessary administrative changes, while introducing extreme political criteria to the application.
The entire team at the Alliance is so proud of the life saving work that providers do every single day across this nation — in communities red and blue. We know that you deserve better, and that is why we are honored to stand up on your behalf.
We are joined in this suit by Women’s Development Corporation of Providence, Rhode Island, one of the countless providers across this country that will lose critically needed Permanent Supportive Housing resources for its community due to this partisan manipulation of the grants application process. The National Alliance to End Homelessness and the Women’s Development Corporation are represented by Democracy Forward, the National Homelessness Law Center, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island and American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Rhode Island. We will be sure to keep you all informed of how this suit progresses. To learn more, please see our press release.
Ann Oliva, CEO
National Alliance to End Homelessness